Door opener and closer



Sept. 29, 1925'. v

' W. J. KNQX ET AL noon OPENER AND CLOSER Filed Aug. '7, 1922 I INVENTORJQ M J. [7 0 ger lrnl a calm 2 A TTORNEYS. J

Patented Sept. 29, 1925.

LUNITED STATES.

1,555,420 PATENT" gorrrce,

WILLIAM J; KNOX, OF COMPTON, AND JAsrEa CALVIN Brown, or LOS enemas,

CALIFORNIA, ASSIGNORS To SAID Knox.

noon OPENER AND cLosEn.

Application filed August 7, 1922. Serial No. 580,259.

To aZZ whom it may concern: I

Be it known that we, WILLIAM J. Knox and JASPER CALVIN Bnowmcitizens of the United States, residing, respectively, at Compton and Los Angeles, in the county of Los Angeles and State of California, have jointly invented new and useful Improvenents in Door Openers and Closers, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to door openers and closers, and particularly to an automatic device for opening a door between two rooms and closing the same by a commonly operated means, said door being operated from either room.

An invention of this character is of great utility for meat markets where it is necessary to carry meat from a room into a st0rage room. At the present time it is necessary to utilize two men, namely, one man to carry the meat and another man to open the door and close the same after the first man has entered the storage room. It. is intended with the present device to accomplish the opening and closing automatically by one man alone. The man carrying the load presses a trip which opens the door, there being a suitable release on the other side, which When actuated by the foot or otherwise, will immediately close the door.

Upon approaching the door from within the storage chamber it is only necessary to actuate a foot trip acting in combination with afirst foot trip which will swing the door open, and a release on the other side of the door will allow the door to automatically close when actuated, the two releases being inter-connected.

The invention has for an object the pro- 40 vision of a device of the character stated,

which is inexpensive in constructon and which will perform the function required of it a most novel manner. ,7 With the above and other objects in view, the invention consists in the novel and useful provision, formation, construction, combination, inter-relation of parts, members and features, all as shownin one embodiment'in the drawing, described in the followin eneral statement and finally pointed D 9 out in claims.

In the drawing: Figure 1 is a fragmentary view showing our improved device associated with a door; Figure 2 is a fragmentary cross sectional view of the, said device,,the same being taken on theline 22 of Figure 1 and lookingin thedirection of the appended arrows;

Flgure 3 is a fragmentarycrosssectional view, taken on the line 3-3 of Figure 2, and looking in the direction of the appended arrows;

Figure 4; is a fragmentary View on an enlarged scale, of certain mechanism for operating the door; and

Figure 5 is a fragmentary cross sectional detail view of the mechanism illustrated in Fi ure 4.

aorresponding parts in all the figures are designated by the same reference characters. I Referring with particularity to the drawmg, the improved device for opening and closing a door is designated in. its entirety and in one'embodiment by A, and in its entirety is adapted to cooperate with a door a, said door being situated between two rooms, the device A being adapted to open or close the door. In particular we ma assume that the device is to operate in conjunction with a storage room where it is necessary to maintain acertain degree of temperature, and a second room under normal temperature. Under these conditions it is essential that the temperature in the first room should be maintained and it. is therefore essential that the door shouldopen and close quickly. To accomplish this desired result let. us assume 'a man approaching the door a. carrying a load. "When he reaches said door his foot depresses a member 1 which will revolve the door upon its hinges and upon entering the second room he touches a releasing rod 2 which allows; the door to immediately close. Assume that he has deposited his load within thesec- 0nd room and picked up other work. As he approachesthe'door a, he depresses amember 3 associated with the member 1, and thedoor a will immediately swing open, and by touching a rod 4 the door is allowed to swingback to a normal closed position between the rooms. It will thus be seen that the man has his hands free for use in carrying work and that two men, are not necessary to effect tl1e-resu'lt-:just described. This obviously will effect a saving of money and time in producing a given r'esult.- In particular, the device A includes the members 1 and 3 wlnchmaybe termed foot pieces,

and the foot pieces 1 and 3 'are'inter-connected as shown at 5, the door casing 6 being slotted as at 7 so that the inter-connecting piece 5 may pass therethrough.

I The slot 7 is relatively narrow and the member 3 may be detachably joined to the piece 5 as by means of screws 8. It is intended that a depression of the foot-piece either 1 or 3, will swing the door into one of the rooms, thus allowing communication between said room and another room. As sume one room as b in Figure 2, and the other room as 0, it being intended that the door a should at all times swing into room 0. l/Ve then construct the door so that when it closes the same will not swing into the room 6; the door may be constructed in any ordinary manner, that in Figure 2 showing stepped edges as shown at 9 and 10, said door casing being correspondingly stepped. This construction will ensure a preventing of air intermingling as between the rooms 6 and c. The member 1 has associated therewith a rod 11 passing through a sleeve 12, said sleeve being joined to the door casing or beneath the floor 16, as illustrated at 13 in Figures 1 and 4, with an end of said rod 11 provided with a slot 14. A lever arm 15, pivoted as at 15, beneath the flooring 16, carries a pin member 17 receivable within the slot 14, said pin member being at an intermediate point on said lever arm 15, with the free end of said lever arm provided with a longitudinalslot 18. A rod or shaft 19 carries bearing members 20 and 21 beneath the floor 16 and one end of said shaft 19 carries an arm 22, said arm carrying a pin member 23 receivable within the slot 18. The opposite end of the shaft 1 9 carries either a bevel gear or a segment 24, and said segment is adapted to have its teeth mesh with a further segment or bevel gear 25 car ried upon a shaft 26, said shaft in the showing of Figure 1 forming the pintle for a series of hinges 27 associated with the door a and the door casing, with the said shaft 26 at its upper free end keyed to a bracket 28 associated with the door a. The door may be hinged to its casing in the ordinary manner and the shaft 26 may terminate beneath the door as shown in dotted lines at 29, with a bracket 30 received within the door and joined with the shaft. This is simply a matter of preference. A coil spring 31 surrounds a portion of the member 11 and is maintained in position between the member 12 and'a flange 32 on said member 11. This coil spring tends to maintain the members land 3 in a given position. If we depress either the member 1 or 3 the rod 11 will move downwardly, the spring 31 being compressed, and the lever arm 15 will move in a counter clockwise direction, in turn moving the arm 22 and rod; the shaft 19 in turn will rotate the shaft 26 through the medium of the members 24 and 25 and tend to open the door a. To close the door we may provide a coil spring 33 joined by suitable means to the door, as shown at 34, with the other end of said spring attached to a bracket 35 projecting through the door casing and within the room Z). Quite obviously a depressing of either the member 1 or the member 3 will open the door, and the moment pressure is released from the members 1 or 3 the spring 33, which would be in tension when'the door is opened, would immediately contract and close the door. To prevent this immediate closing of the door we provide suitable means 36, which will maintain either the member 1 or 3 in a downward position so that the door will re main open until the means 36 is allowed to release the member 1 or 3. In particular the means 36 may comprise a cam 37 which in the showing of the figures may consist of an eccentrically mounted disc with the members 2 and 4 associated therewith as illustrated in Figure 5. The member 2 may consist of two parts, as 38 and 39 with an inter-connecting part 40, thus forming 'a crank. The member 39 is carried in a bushing 41 which is receivable within a trans verse opening 42 in the casing, and with the part 39 eccentrically attached to the disc 37. A coil spring 43 may surround a portion of the member 39 having one end thereof attached to the member 39 and the other end secured to the bushing 41, as illustrated at 44. Assume that the member 1 has been depressed by the foot, which de- 100 p'ression will tend to rotate the disc 37 in the direction of the arrow shown in Figure 4, it being understood that the periphery of the disc is in contact with. an edge of the member 1 as shown at 45,a relieving of the 105 pressure upon the member 1 will cause the disc 37 and the member 1 to wedge and prevent the member 1 from returning to its normal position, normal position being the position assumed by the member 1 when the door a: is closed. This wedging action between the disc 37 and the member 1 will be overcome when either the member 4 or the member 2 is moved. In thisparticular, it will be noted. upon reference to Figures'4 and 5 that the members 4 and 39 are both eccentric to the disc 37 and that movement of the parts 2 or 4 will rotate the. disc 37 in the direction of the arrow in Figure 4. This movement of the disc 37 will permit the members 1 and 3 to return to their normal position and a releasing of pressure against either the members 2 or 4 will allow the disc 37 to again assume the position as shown in Figure 4, due to the fact that any rotation of the disc 37 is resisted by the spring 43.

A structure of this character does away with all complicated mechanism and per,- mits, as has been stated, the hands of the 130 operator of the door to be left free.- A device of this character might be utilized for other purposes than for operating a storage room door.

In the 'usage of this device, particularly where a storage room is concerned, it may be necessary to provide a flexible covering 46 adapted to pass over the slot 7 to prevent any air transference as between the rooms.

It is obvious that many changes, modifications and variations may be made in practicing the invention, in departure from the particular description as given herein, with out departing from the true scope of the invention.

Having thus disclosed our invention, we claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent:

1. In a device of the character disclosed, the combination with a door interposed between two rooms, of means for opening the door, said means including a member having parts projecting within each room, a shaft associated with such member, and mechanism associated with the door and with said shaft whereby upon movement of one of the projecting parts the said door may be opened; there being means for maintaining such door in an open osition; said means acting in conjunction with the member having parts projecting within each room.

2. In a device of the character disclosed, the combination with a door interposed between two rooms, of hinge members for such door, a shaft joined with such hinge members and adapted to open the door when the shaft is revolved in a given direction, and means for revolving such shaft; said means comprising a member having parts projecting within each room, a depressionof such member rotating the shaft, and a cam for engagement with the member having pro'ecting parts whereby the said member is eld in such depressed position, said cam having a projecting arm for releasing its engagement with the member having the projecting parts.

In testimony whereof, we have signed our names to this specification.

WILLIAM J. KNOX. JASPER CALVIN BROWN. 

